Theater

2024 Calendar

HIGH SCHOOL
Grades 9-12 next school year

Session 1 June 26 – July 7
Session 2 July 10 – July 21

INTERMEDIATE
Grades 7-9 next school year

Session 3 July 24 – August 4
Session 4 August 7 – August 18

Blue Lake’s Theater Program offers a well-rounded, dynamic, and equal opportunity approach to actor training. While at camp, each theater camper will study acting, voice, movement, and script analysis under highly trained professional actors and teachers. Students may also choose one of three emphasis areas — Shakespeare, Musical Theater, or Contemporary Acting — where they will receive greater depth of instruction and apply the techniques taught at camp in small group performances presented on the final Sunday of the session.

Musical Theater majors will also study dance, while Shakespeare and Contemporary Acting majors study stage combat. Selection of emphasis classes is done on a first-come, first-served basis and is requested at enrollment.

Theater students can complete their instructional day by choosing a Minor, allowing them to experience another area of interest while at camp. Students also have the opportunity to attend Summer Arts Festival performances, as well as participate in recreation, camp activities, and attend arts-focused educational events in the evening.

All Theater students are expected to offer a demonstration of their craft by submitting a placement video prior to arrival. Requirements vary according to major, but all audition pieces must be memorized, written for the stage, and reveal the actor’s ability to create an original interpretation of the text based on character, objective, and obstacle.

Contemporary Acting campers should prepare a one minute contemporary monologue for this placement audition. Shakespeare campers should prepare a one minute Shakespeare monologue or soliloquy. Musical Theater campers should prepare a 16+ measure excerpt from standard musical theater repertoire.

Blue Lake’s Elizabethan theater, named The Rose in honor of one of London’s first of the Elizabethan period (circa 1587), is a synthesis of various popular 16th century English theaters. The design is based upon surviving sketches and documents from that period. The Rose, approximately ½ the size of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London, has a traditional thrust stage, a Juliet balcony, seating for approximately 600 in two galleries, plus a groundling area providing space for an additional 150 attendees in the yard. Blue Lake may very well be the only place in the U.S. where secondary students can study Shakespeare performance in a reproduction of an Elizabethan theater, and we are pleased to offer this unique experience to our Theater majors.

Scholarships for Shakespeare Major

Students enrolling in the Shakespeare program may be eligible for significant scholarship assistance. Recipients are selected via video audition, with preferred applications due by February 28th, and second-round applications due by March 28th. Visit Scholarships to learn more.

Andrew Anglin

Theater Department Director

Andrew Anglin, Theatre Program Director and Instructor, holds an MA in Theatre with an emphasis in directing and acting pedagogy from Michigan State University. During the academic year, Andrew teaches theatre and English at Byron Center High School and continues to direct in both educational and professional settings. His work has been seen on stages at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, Aquinas College, and Actors’ Theatre Grand Rapids. His tenure as the Theatre Department Director . . .

at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp has seen the creation and development of the Shakespeare program, the construction of the Rose Theatre, and the addition of the theatre study tour to England and Paris.